Commissioners press EMS chiefs after reports GPS trackers were disabled

Sumner County commissioners discussed unverified reports on Aug. 4 that GPS tracking units on emergency vehicles had been disabled, with EMS leadership telling the committee the system is automatic and monitored and the county mayor asking legal staff to trace the source of the claims.

The discussion matters because GPS tracking is used by dispatch and command staff to direct the nearest available ambulance or responder; if units are not reporting their location for long periods, that can create operational confusion and prompt public concern about asset use and safety.

County committee members raised multiple concerns after secondhand social-media reports suggested some nonambulance county vehicles and emergency units were not reporting location data. The committee’s emergency communications center (ECC) and the EMS chief said the CAD (computer-aided dispatch) system shows only vehicles that are in service and that GPS reporting begins when a unit goes “in service.” As the EMS chief told the committee, “When those vehicles are turned on, you cannot disable GPS units.” The chief later added that physically disabling a unit would “take tools out of our mechanic shop to get into the cabinets to make a change.”

The mayor told the committee he was concerned about any unauthorized sharing of GPS data and said he would ask the county law department to pursue the identities of people providing secondhand reports so officials could verify the claims. The mayor said, “If a citizen has access to that and there's unauthorized sharing of that data, that puts my personnel, the county's personnel at risk. And that, as county mayor, I can't tolerate.”

Other committee members described how reports can be mistaken when vehicles are parked, out of service for maintenance, or taken out of commission because of age or mileage. One commissioner with past dispatch experience explained that CAD will not list vehicles that are deliberately out of service — for example, ambulances stored at a boneyard for decommissioning — and that lack of a CAD trace can generate rumors that GPS has been disabled.

Committee members asked for clarity rather than immediate punitive action. The ECC director said staffing and reporting formats had changed for the meeting packet but that call-statistics reports are available monthly and can be produced in month-to-month charts on request. No formal resolution or vote to open an investigation was taken during the meeting; the mayor’s request that legal pursue the names of people who reported the alleged problem was stated verbally but not recorded as a formal motion on the committee floor.

Committee members also raised budget context while discussing asset utilization: one member said EMS operating costs had risen from about $14 million a few years ago to roughly $18 million in the current budget and noted planned capital spending that includes approximately $3.5 million for a new ambulance station and a plan for one new station annually over five years. Those figures were discussed as background, and speakers characterized them as estimates rather than precise budget appropriations.

The committee closed the item after receiving the chief’s operational explanation and the mayor’s pledge to seek the sources of the social-media reports; commissioners asked staff to provide routine operational reports if citizens want periodic transparency on fleet usage. The committee also noted that there are public-records avenues for others to request dispatch and CAD data if they want to verify incidents.

No committee action — such as a referral for audit or a formal investigation vote — was recorded on Aug. 4; the committee set no deadline for legal follow-up during the meeting. The committee’s next scheduled meeting was rescheduled by motion to Sept. 2, 2025, because the regular date fell on Labor Day.